


looks like the end of history

by iamnotalizard



Category: Bill & Ted (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Time Skips, rip deacon's eyes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 14:31:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17408666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamnotalizard/pseuds/iamnotalizard
Summary: bill and ted's relationship through the eyes of deacon





	looks like the end of history

**Author's Note:**

> keanu reeves is cordially invited to eat my ass

Deacon can’t remember the first time Ted brought Bill home. He doesn’t know if that’s because Bill has always been around – always walking into the house without knocking, without needing a key, always been a normal part of what made ‘home’ home – or if he just repressed that memory due to trauma related reasons.

He can recall many times that he stormed home, slammed the door, furious over fights that he had with his own friends. He can remember ranting about arguments he had with his friend Max and Dylan. He can remember sniffling into his pillow after his first high school girlfriend dumped him for a sophomore. In most of those memories, Bill was there, nodding along with Ted and saying sympathetic words.

Deacon can’t even remember one instance of Ted seeming even annoyed with Bill.

Bill was such a staple in the Logan household that Ted kept a blow-up mattress under his own bed, since Bill sleeping over was just as likely to happen as Ted sleeping at Bill’s. Deacon was just as likely to have to fight over cereal with Bill as he was to not see his brother for breakfast for days on end.

When Deacon was fourteen and Ted has just turned nineteen – still living at home, but working in a music supply store, since their dad demanded rent – their dad went out of town for some cop conference happening in Pasadena. He was gone for a week and a half. Four days had gone by since Deacon had seen Ted for longer than ten minutes, so he assumed that on this night, like the previous ones, that Ted was at Bill’s house again. He had been making noise all evening and hadn’t seen Ted once.

Deacon had a date the next evening, and despite their height difference, most of Ted’s older jackets fit him just fine. He figured he would go into Ted’s room, rummage around for a bit, take Ted’s old denim jacket – the one with no patches, but a couple of holes – or maybe one of his old flannels, wear it out, then return it before anyone was the wiser.

He didn’t bother to knock when he pushed open the door to Ted’s room. And, _oh. Okay._

Deacon could remember being nine and a fourteen-year-old Bill coming with Ted to walk him home from school. He could remember being twelve and Bill driving him to a friend’s house before he and Ted went to a movie theatre. He remembers swimming, water parks, rock climbing and shopping with Bill.

Now he could see Bill laying on his brother’s bed, with his hand down Ted’s pants. He could the flush on Bill’s face and bite marks on his shirtless brother’s chest. He could see his brother jerk away from Bill as he made eye contact with Deacon.

For a moment the world seems to stop spinning, all three of them seemed to stop breathing as the two brothers stared at each other, Bill growing increasingly uncomfortable beneath Ted.

Then Bill made a move to remove his hand from Ted’s pants. The spell broke. Deacon grabbed the door handle and slammed the door shut, trying to quickly retreat to his bedroom down the hall, as he heard his brother yell, “Deacon!”

He heard Ted throw the door open, his footsteps as he follows after him.

Deacon makes it to his bedroom and tries to close the door just as Ted gets there. Despite the lankiness, Ted has five years of gym classes on Deacon, and manages to push the door open.

Still shirtless, Ted makes a grab for Deacon as the younger tries to push him away.

Ted grabs his hair and pushes him to the ground as Deacon yells, “Let me go!”

“Deacon!” Ted yells again, hitting Deacon’s hands away from his face. “Shut up!”

Deacon shuts up, but still keeps pushing at his older brother.

“Deacon, Deacon – Jesus, stop with the hitting – Deacon, you _cannot tell dad_.” Ted says in an urgent tone, finally getting a hold of Deacon’s wrists.

From beyond Ted’s shoulders, Deacon can hear Bill say, “Dude, calm down.”

“Promise me, Deacon. You cannot tell dad.” Ted says again. Deacon finally meets his eyes, and instead of the anger that he expected, he sees fear. “Promise.”

Deacon opens and closes his mouth for a few seconds. The air in the room is tense and sour.

“Promise me.”

Bill walks over and puts a hand on Ted’s shoulder. “Come on, dude. Let him up.”

Ted keeps staring into Deacon’s eyes for a few more seconds, before he relents, standing up and slowly making his way out of his brother’s room. Bill offers Deacon a hand up off the floor. Deacon hits it away.

Later that night, he calls to cancel his date.

 

The next morning is a Saturday, so Deacon sleeps in a bit. He assumed that Bill and Ted had went to Bill’s house after he walked in on them, so he was surprised to see Ted standing in the kitchen, washing a frying pan with a plate of pancakes on the kitchen table.

Deacon stops in the doorway and stares at him. After a few moments Ted seems to realize he has company and looks over.

“Hey,” He says.

“Hey.” He replies, automatically. Ted nods towards the plate.

“Have some, dude, I made them for you.”

Deacon tentatively takes a seat at the table. He doesn’t eat and Ted doesn’t join him.

“Is Bill here?”

“Nah, he returned home after… last night.”

Deacon nods, mostly to himself. “Thought you had work today.”

“In the evening, yeah.”

They fall into silence again, Ted with his back to Deacon.

After a few more moments Ted says, “I’m sorry if I hurt you last night. It was most undignified of me.”

After a few beats of silence he replies, “I’m sorry I tried to get into your room.”

More silence. Deacon finally reaches over to pick up a pancake. They’re cool to the touch. Suddenly, Ted whips around, front of his shirt damp from dishwashing. He looks tired.

“You never promised not to tell dad.”

“I have to!” Deacon says, “I can’t not tell him that you’re…” He trails off.

“That I’m what? A fag?” Ted finishes for him. “Do you know what he’ll do to me if you tell him?”

Deacon shrugs. He hasn’t really thought about that. All he knows is it feels important enough to tell their dad, no matter the consequences. Ted sighs and rubs his face with his hands.

“Do you remember the babe who used to live three houses down, Irene?”

“Yeah.”

“Her parents found her making out with a girl. Sent her to a Jesus camp in Utah. She used to work at the movie theatre downtown now. Didn’t let any lady touch her. She would gag if you mentioned kissing a woman.”

“And you think dad would send you to a camp like her?” Deacon asks, sceptically. On some level he thinks, _maybe that isn’t a bad idea. Maybe that’s what you need._

Ted shakes his head. “No,” he says, seriously, “I think he would do something worse.”

Deacon remembers Ted complaining about going to military school; the pain in his voice when he spoke of being sent to Alaska, away from his friends ( _Bill_ ), his band ( _Bill_ ), and his life ( _Bill_ ). The pain in his voice now makes those complaints seem trivial.

“How do you know about Irene? What happened to her?” Deacon asks, instead of thinking about what Ted is saying.

“Bill’s mom graduated with her.” For a second, Ted seems to shrink in on himself, before looking Deacon in the eyes again. “She killed herself a couple of months ago.”

“Oh,” is all that Deacon can say.

He and Ted eat cold pancakes in silence.

He decides not to tell his dad.

 

Ted moves out about six months after that night. His dad seems almost relieved to get rid of him – so relieved that he doesn’t mind that Ted is moving into an apartment with Bill.

Only Deacon knows that it’s a one-bedroom apartment.

Ted gives him a key to it and tells him that he can stay over whenever he wants, but, “Bill and I have been making some most outstanding process with Wyld Stallyns, so you may have to kick it on your lonesome.”

Sometimes if he knows his dad won’t be home for dinner and he doesn’t have plans with friends, Deacon will go over. It’s shockingly easy for it to be normal with Bill, even after he saw him trying to jerk his brother off. Even more shocking is how much they make sense, when Deacon thinks about it.

Ted never did seem that interested in dating, and the few girls that did go out with him were often ignored as soon as Bill walked into the room. They can finish each other’s sentences, seem to know each other thoughts. It’s impossible to have a conversation with just one of them; they’re a package deal.

They keep intimacy to a minimum when Deacon is around. He doesn’t know if it’s courtesy or if they’re like that all the time. Sometimes Ted will kiss Bill’s neck as he’s reaching around him for something, or maybe Bill will tug on Ted’s hair until he leans down for a quick peck on the lips to say _thank you_ for something, but those instances are few and far between.

It’s on a day where Deacon’s dad called and said there’s an issue at the station, don’t wait up, find something to eat, that he decided to go over to his brother’s house for dinner. They’re always good for quick frozen meals.

He unlocks the door and walks in, frowning when he doesn’t see them lounging on the shitty old couch that they got from the thrift store. The lights are on, but Bill and Ted seem absent from the apartment, and neither of them mentioned any gig they had tonight.

He hears a strange sound from the bedroom and walks towards it. It’s too early for them to be sleeping, so he doesn’t know why both of them would be in it, it’s so small.

He’s about halfway to the door, when his eyes widen and face turns red. He recognizes the strange sound as gagging, and he can at this distance he can faintly hear a thread of, “ _Fuck, Ted, fuck fuck fuck, ted-“_

Deacon turns around and leaves the apartment as fast and as quiet as possible. He spends forty-five minutes sitting in front of a gas station before he walks back to the apartment, this time knocking on the front door.

Bill opens the door with a grin. “Salutation, little dude! To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Dad’s out, can I have dinner here?” Bill is dressed normal, not that Deacon would know what he expected Bill to dress like after having gay sex. His shirt is as cropped and loose as usual, his pants are on properly. He even has socks on.

“Absolutely, it will be a meal of most tasty delights.” Ted says, already walking over to the freezer.

Deacon can hear the slight rasp in his voice and doesn’t comment.

After they eat dinner (frozen pizza), and just as Ted is saying goodbye at the door he says, “Deacon, you know that you can waltz right in. We gave you a key for any emergency – dietary, musical, or fire hazardly.”

Deacon nods, “Okay.”

He knocks the next time, just in case.

 

Deacon doesn’t see Ted that much ages sixteen through eighteen. First, his dad finds out that Bill and Ted are living in sin, which makes it hard to say, ‘ _hey I’m going to go hang out with Ted, you know, your son, my brother, the gay one, the one living with his boyfriend who he probably fucked while living under your roof, dad’._ Deacon will call sometimes, chat for a bit until the conversation grew stale, never about anything serious but the conversations tend to last a while, if gone uninterrupted. (Once, Bill picked up the phone and said Ted was out. Deacon expected that to be the end of it, but he ended up talking for almost half an hour with him. At the end of it, Bill said, “Bye, lil bro, talk to you later.”

Deacon couldn’t help but wonder if the ‘bro’ part was just slang, or if that’s what Bill really thought of him as.)

Ted leaves him presents for his birthday and Christmas on the doorstep. It’s never anything that he actually wants, but later in life he appreciates the effort.

Then, when Deacon’s seventeen, Bill and Ted go on tour. It isn’t _their_ tour; they’re just an opener for another band that Deacon doesn’t really care for, but Ted’s excitement is palatable. It’s just around the West coast, going up across the border for a town or two, but it takes them a few months.

They bring a whole bunch of stuff back with them: postcards for every major city, guitar picks that other bands gave them, beer from Canada, a dreamcatcher from some aboriginal band in Washington and a camera that they bought in San Francisco. It took them a while, but they finally develop the photos then they give the camera to Deacon.

“We just wanted it for the trip.” Ted says, with a shrug. “Check out the outstanding artistic eye on this one, courtesy of one Bill S. Preston, esquire.”

And admittedly, yes, some of the pictures are cool. Pictures of neon signs in the dark, the broken-down van in front of a desert, roadkill surrounded by flowers at the side of the road, people waiting in line to see the shows.

As he flips through the photos, Deacon can see that almost half of them have Ted in them. Ted in front of his guitar, Ted practicing, Ted sleeping, Ted smiling at the camera (or more accurately, at Bill), Ted kissing Bill’s hand, eyes tired but happy as his hair falls over his face. Deacon’s cheeks flush as he quickly shuffles that one to the back of the stack. There’s one them and the ‘princesses’ posed in front of what Deacon is guessing is their first sold out venue, smiles wide, pointing at the board that proclaims: _“WYLD STALLYNS – MY HEART, YOUR HANDS – THE FOREST GODS – SOLD OUT !”_ They both look so intensely happy. It makes Deacon think of his dad’s house, devoid of any pictures that aren’t professionally taken. All of them looking stiff, uncomfortable, not really happy despite smiling.

The picture of them pointing at the sign gets pinned to their living room wall, the one where Ted is kissing Bill’s hand gets put in their bedroom.

Deacon takes the camera. The pictures he takes with it aren’t very good, but Ted is always excited when he sees what his brother has taken. Deacon guesses that counts for something.

 

Deacon graduates high school and gets into a college that’s an hour’s drive away. Wyld Stallyns are performing somewhere in the mid-west when Deacon crosses the stage, but when he gets home, there’s a very excited voice mail that Ted left for him.

He heads off to college and isn’t sure if he’s proud or hates the fact that his roommate is a fan of Wyld Stallyns. Either way he gets Ted to send him a signed copy of their new CD.

 

Wyld Stallyns get signed to a record company, release a record that gets played on every major music station in the West Coast, get into a dispute with said record company, win a lawsuit, release another record that is arguably better than the previous one, and decide to remain independent, all before Deacon finishes his third year of college. His roommate is still a fan, and sometimes when he’s on the phone with Ted and he starts getting tired of the endless ramble and tangents, he’ll pass the phone to his roommate and let them talk for a few more minutes.

He’s just about to motion for Jackson to come take the phone from him when Ted sighs and says, “Bill and I are having the most heinous time right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, romantically.”

“….oh?” Deacon is unsure what his response is supposed to be. Neither Ted nor Bill have ever explicitly talked about how they were dating (to him, at least), but he guesses it’s fair that Ted talk about his relationship problems, consider Deacon used to go on for hours about how Tiffany did this, or how Emma did that.

 “Yeah, man, living the touring life and falling victim to corporate greed creates a quite strenuous environment unto which one feels comfortable to bang.”

“Ew!” Deacons says loudly, making Jackson jump from where he’s reading his psychology textbook.

“Plus, Joanna is getting hitched – do _not_ tell other people – and we are ecstatic for her, but now Bill is falling into depressive moods about not being involve in holy matrimony with me, which is a bummer.”

Deacon nods silently for a second, before repeating, “…Bill wants to get married?”

Jackson looks over with wide eyes. Deacon waves him off. He isn’t quite sure if Jackson knows about Bill and Ted or not.

“Seems that way.”

“Well, that sucks.” Deacon says, eloquently. He doesn’t have many other words of comfort. He wonders if this is something new, or if it had been going on for a while and Ted had just never mentioned it before.

“Yeah, it does.” Ted agrees.

 

Joanna gets married two months later, Bill tells Deacon over the phone (" _Y_ _ou’ll get pictures soon enough, man, the venue was pretty stellar for a vineyard"_ ). He doesn’t mention anything about wanting to marry Ted nor does he sound resentful in any way. A part of Deacon wants to ask, wants to be the one who tries to get them to open up about their relationship. But Jackson is sitting on his bed and Deacon has class in half an hour and Bill is probably busy and and and-

Deacon doesn’t ask, Bill doesn’t tell. He wills himself not to feel guilty every time one of them calls for the next month.

 

Deacon graduates college, meets a girl that he doesn’t mind, gets a job he doesn’t hate and gets to see his brother within six months. He hates to admit it, but he kind of forgot what his brother looks like in person instead of what he looks like on posters and CD covers.

Ted looks the same as he did in all of Deacon’s pictures of them together. His hair is a bit shorter, maybe less poofy. He looks tired but energized. His clothes are just as ratty as always, but his shoes look brand new. Not to mention there’s a thin gold chain around his neck. Of course, Bill is with him, looking the same as ever, slightly tired, baggy jeans and unzipped hoodie over (what Deacon is assuming is) his signature crop top. Bill also has a thin gold chain around his neck. Deacon would probably find the matching jewelry cuter if Ted wasn’t his brother.

Bill and Ted have a few months off from touring, and they decided to write music back in their hometown instead of in New York as they have been doing for the past few years.

(“One day you must venture out to the East Coast with us,” Bill says in the middle of a story about bar hopping. “The sights are truly specular.”

“As are the clubs,” Ted says slyly, making Bill laugh. Deacon chuckles along, but he can tell there’s an inside joke he’s missing.)

Their old apartment in San Dimas has been long sold but they find a place to rent pretty easily. Deacon almost wants to re-enact some of his high school weekends of just lazing around his older brother’s place every day, eating frozen food and watching MTV, but he has a job and a girlfriend, and he can tell that his brother wants some alone time with his boyfriend after months on the road.

 (Plus, one day Deacon does decide to turn up unannounced. He doesn’t have a key, but he doesn’t need to open the door to hear the grunts, moans, and cursing from the other side. He almost gets whiplash from how quickly he turns around. Maybe he should just wait until Ted invites him over from now on.)

His girlfriend doesn’t seem to like Ted that much, but she also doesn’t seem to like anything that much. They had different majors in college, different jobs now, they want to live in different cities when they’re older, and they don’t even like the same food. Deacon invites her over when he goes to see Bill and Ted but most often she declines with a roll of her eyes.

Sometimes when Deacon goes over to watch a movie with them, he’ll look over and see Ted slumped down, resting his head on Bill’s shoulder, arms wrapped around his waist and legs tangled together. Bill’s fingers are usually petting through Ted’s hair, rubbing small circles on his scalp. They look calm like Deacon could never imagine his brother looking. They look happy – like, really happy – just by being together.

His girlfriend gets mad at him for spending so much time with his brother. For some reason he thinks of Bill’s fingers getting tangled in Ted’s hair as they watch Jaws, he thinks about how they want to get married but can’t and are somehow okay with that, he thinks of photos of Ted staring lovingly past the camera.

He breaks up with his girlfriend while Ted is still in town. He doesn’t feel that sad about it, but he almost milks it just for the excuse to whine about it to his brother and Bill for a few hours. Just like the good old times.

 

 

Four years and three albums later Ted calls Deacon and lets him know that he and Bill got married in Canada after performing in Montreal.

“French people are on some peculiar wavelength, but they know how to party.” Ted continues, as if he didn’t just say that he was now married.

“You got _married_ and your biggest concern is how French people party?” Deacon clarifies, loudly. His fiancée, Lori, looks up from the couch with a raised eyebrow. Deacon mouths _Ted_ and she starts laughing silently.

“Well, yeah, it isn’t a magnificent wedding unless you party afterwards.”

Deacon rolls his eyes. “Did either of you change last names?”

He could hear Ted lean away from the receiver and yell, “Bill! Bill come here and introduce me to my brother!”

After a few seconds there was rustling, and Bill’s voice floated through the speakers. “My name is Bill S. Preston Esquire, and may I introduce my esteemed colleague, Ted ‘Theodore’ Preston!”

Laughter erupted from the other side of the phone. Deacon couldn’t help but join them.

 

 

For a long time, Deacon forgot that _technically_ Bill and Ted weren’t out to most of the world. When he sees pictures of Bill wearing oversized jackets, he knows that he stole it from Ted’s closet, not that Bill purposely owns something that is at least one size too big. He knows that Bill only smiles in interviews when he’s talking about Ted, not Wyld Stallyns. He knows that Ted carries both their guitars on and off stage – not because he’s stronger, but because it means that Bill will roll his eyes and say, “Oh thank you, my strong, valiant knight!” before giving him a kiss. Deacon doesn’t think about the fact that they only kiss in rooms that have closed doors. He doesn’t think about how they don’t get more affectionate than high fives and side hugs in public. Ted still signed autographs as Ted Logan, but Deacon always thought that was more a stage name thing, not a _people can’t know I’m married_ thing.

He even thought that the fact they don’t have actual wedding rings was because it interfered with their guitar playing.

So, when Lori bursts through the apartment door, brandishing a magazine, saying, “Bill and Ted are out!”

Deacon replies, “What do you mean out? They just got back from Asia.”

Lori rolls her eyes and tosses the magazine over. On the cover is Ted leaning down to kiss Bill’s forehead. Bill is grinning wide and his cheeks are a soft pink. They look unaware of the camera. They look happy.

“Oh,” Deacon says, as Lori nods, “They’re _out._ ”

 

He calls Ted.

“So, uh, Lori brought home the magazine today.” He hears Ted sigh from the other side.

“Yeah, it’s pretty ludicrous that two guys can’t have a stroll around town without their privacy being invaded upon, but all things considered it’s fine.”

“It’s _fine_?” Deacon asks. He remembers his brother being nineteen and scared at the prospect of being out. He remembers his brother kissing Bill in the kitchen in his apartment before leaving because that was the only place he could. He remembers Bill telling Ted to stop holding his hand while he’s driving in case someone sees inside. He remembers his brother joking, “Thank god you have Lori, or else someone would accuse me of infecting you with queerness!” except they both knew it wasn’t really a joke.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Ted repeats. “Our manager sent us flowers, which was quite sweet of her, but now Bill’s sneezing and I’m pretty sure it’s attracting fruit flies-”

“Ted, what about, oh, I don’t know, your _career?”_ Deacon interrupts.  There’s silence for a few seconds. “Ted?”

“Bill and I are unsure,” Ted beginnings slowly, “as to whether or not we will release our next album as planned. The studio we record at sent a letter of utmost repulsion. A lot of radio stations have called about pulling our older songs off the air. Since Bill and I and the princesses are all on vacation still, there aren’t any events to cancel but it seems increasingly unlikely that there will be many events in the future for us to partake in.”

Deacon waits a few more seconds and hears the sniffles that he was waiting to hear. He hasn’t heard his brother cry since they were kids, hell, _he_ hasn’t cried in front of his brother in almost a decade. And yet Deacon can still tell when Ted was trying to seem tough, from age eight, when he broke his hand, to thirty-four, when some asshole with a camera decided that he was going to go out and break Ted’s heart.

“ _It fucking sucks, Deacon.”_ Ted chokes out.

“I know, dude,” Deacon says, “It’s gonna be okay.”

At least, he hopes it will.

 

 

Wyld Stallyns take a break from music. The Princesses go off and do their own thing during the wait. Bill and Ted move further into New York and stay away from the public. They have enough money that they could never work again and still live comfortably, but every time Deacon asks Ted, “So you’ve written anything yet?” and Ted says, “No.” he can tell that it breaks Ted’s heart a little.

One phone call Ted tells him that him and Bill argue more than they ever have.

A few weeks later Ted says that Bill is looking at other places to live. Places without Ted.

“The future is looking quite atrocious.” Ted sighs.

Deacon has his own life now; his own job, his own wife and child, he has his own issues that he’s dealing with. But the prospect of his brother breaking up with Bill scares him. Bill has been in his life forever, always by Ted’s side, always helping, teasing, caring and annoying Deacon as long as he’s known him. Bill and Ted are _meant_ for each other. It almost feels like losing a brother.

He tells Lori this one evening, after they’ve put their kids to bed and they’re sharing a bottle of wine and a packet of Oreos. She swirls her glass thoughtfully before taking a sip.

“How about you invite them over for a week or two? Get them out of New York, sharing a guest room, some family time, ya know? Maybe you could take a few days off or they could hang out with the kids for a bit; you know how much Willow and Theresa loves them.”

Deacon nods along and takes a sip. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”

 

A month later, Bill and Ted decide instead of flying that they’re going to make a road trip out of it. It takes them a week, but Deacon can tell that it was worth it, because by the time they pull up to the driveway Bill is grinning like he’s a teenager and Ted looks younger than he’s looked in a while. They share a guest room, and a bed, and don’t argue the entire two weeks that they’re over.

They take Deacon’s kids out to Waterloo and tell them the story of how Deacon had to take care of ‘Napoleon’ while they did their school project. Deacon rolls his eyes as they tell it. He still doesn’t know how the hell that guy was or why he was so weird.

“I’m glad that you guys are still together,” he admits while they’re packing up to head home. Bill looks up from where he’s trying to zip up a bursting suitcase. “I almost can’t imagine one of you without the other.”

They both grin at that. “Yeah, we’re a pretty excellent duo,” Bill says.

They drive back to New York. Two weeks later Ted tells Deacon that they’re writing music again.

 

Wyld Stallyns release an album six months later. It’s good – really good. So good that radio stations that called them fags are overplaying songs. Companies are asking them to endorse products again – they invariably get ‘no’ as the response, but they still ask. Fans want another tour. Record sales are booming.

People aren’t even ignoring the gay thing either; they seem to be genuinely coming around to it.

Deacon doesn’t really care about that. In all honesty, he’s always kind of hated his brother’s music, even though Lori listens to it as a guilty pleasure. All he knows is that his brother is telling him that he won’t be calling as often because the cell service from Japan is awful and sometimes when he’s in line at the supermarket, he’ll look at the magazines on display and see a cover featuring Ted holding Bill’s hand and isn’t filled with dread.

He finally visits them in New York while he’s on a business trip. Their house is a fancy, sleek penthouse apartment in the heart of the city. The furniture is modern and expensive looking. Awards and instruments decorate the walls and shelves. Deacon looks around and it finally sinks in how far his brother has gotten in life, how much things have changed

He’s waiting in the living room for Ted to find his wallet to take the three of them out to lunch. He’s looking around and his eyes fall onto the small wall of pinned photos. Deacon almost laughs at the fact that with all their money, they still don’t get picture frames. He walks towards it to take a closer look.

Deacon sees the photos from their first tour. Them and the princesses grinning as they point to a ‘sold out’ sign. Ted’s sleepy, blissed out eyes gazing at the camera as he smiles. He sees pictures that he’s sent over from his own family; him and Lori holding Willow and Theresa for the first time, Bill with both the kids on his shoulders, all of them sitting on a beach, eyes squinted.

He sees a photo of them kissing under an arch in what is probably a town hall. There’s a man behind them mid-laughter and flowers are woven up the columns. Right next to it is a photo of them drinking champagne from the bottle in a club, arms linked, alcohol running down their necks. Deacon assumes that the partying in Montreal that Ted always talks about.

“Okay, after many minutes of searching and inquiry, I have found my wallet. Let’s go.” Ted says, stepping into the room. Deacon turns around and nods, going to get his jacket on.

Just before they get out the door, Bill reaches up and tugs on Ted’s hair gently, pulling him down for a quick kiss on the lips. Ted grins as Bill untangles his fingers.

Deacon guesses that not everything has changed.

**Author's Note:**

> aint it wild how i started writig fanfiction in middle school bcos of homestuck and now here i am.... in unversity trying 2 become a politician so that i can end canadian involvment in military endevors and create a nationwide ban on conversion therapy... still writing fanfiction....


End file.
